The Lakers have struggled to defend the pick and roll ever since Vogel was hired. It's one of the reasons he pulled Javale and Dwight frequently during the championship season. Forcing the big to come up high and show, but then try to get back to the paint, only works with AD. On occasion he will try to send a man to jump the guard, but he prefers not to give up the open look on the perimeter , that goes with that. It worked out in the bubble, because Portland, Houston and Denver didn't use it as a staple in their offense. Phoenix runs it the death, GS, Memphis use it a lot. Frankly anybody we play has success with that action against us. Last season too. It's going to probably get used more and more league wide soon. https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...le-hack-sticking-two-guys-in-the-corners/amp/
3 midget guards who arent' good defenders (Bradley is ok on-ball but he's not great off ball and his size is just an issue) with drop coverage makes no sense. I like Frank but he's got to go with a modern switch heavy defense and while his roster is limited he has not maximized it
Small ball works. It just doesn't work with guys like Bradley. When you decide to switch or tag the roll man, he offers no resistance. Reaves would be a guy who could thrive. He has played more mins than Bradley on 5 of the 7 games. They need to setup the roster with a bunch of guys as SJ and Reaves as the template for surrounding LBJ/Davis.
Fair or not, Frank is in the same position as Budenholzer last season. Finals or get fired. At least the Bucks had their big 3 available and ready to go when the playoffs started. Frank might no be that lucky. If not, he's not going to get a pass.
Team has to come down on him to play less Bradley. The missed opens 3's and the lack of size is getting old (and I like Avery!)
I just don’t understand the constant complaining here at LB about Bradley. Who would you play more of in place of him? Monk shot 20% tonight. Reaves put up an Ofer and refused to take open looks. THT had three straight turnovers and hit one of three shots. Why does Bradley continue to be the scapegoat? Did you miss the fact that he had 4 steals tonight? He shot only 40% but that’s twice as good as Monk and Westbrook.
I like Bradley. But we need an upgrade at either SG or SF. I wouldn't mind starting because he can be a pesky defender on small guards and as a 40% 3pt shooter. If we had a better wing starting it wouldn't be an issue. The problem is everyone is just looking for scapegoats. It's been Russ, AD, Bradley, THT etc etc at different points in the season.
But the criticism of Westbrook is warranted. He’s making $44 million a year and he’s a polarizing player. He’s not easy to embrace and he’s eating up so much cap space while playing some really questionable ball at times. The critique of AD earlier this season was also justified. His attitude at times and lack of desire were bad. Since he’s returned he’s looking much more like championship AD but that wasn’t the case often earlier on. I just don’t get bashing on or scapegoating Bradley. And I don’t get what everyone wants as a solution? Play less Bradley and more who? Monk doesn’t play any D. Nor does Wayne. I love Reaves but he is finally looking like the rookie he is. THT has sucked pretty much all season and so has Bazemore. Who does that leave? You and Weezy and others say we need a better starting shooting guard but who is that? Who are you proposing? We had a better version of AB in KCP but we traded him to get Westbrook. We can’t have it both ways. You can’t have a $44 million PG and a high paid SG too. There isn’t the money. Bradley is who he is. He’s a vet minimum journeyman blue collar player. He’s consistent in his role. Every night he will give you full defensive effort, shoot 40% from the field and shoot nearly 40% from three. That’s why he has the starting job and will keep it. I don’t understand what you all expect from him?
front office didn't commit to a plan. if we were going small to accommodate russ, we should have done different things with our centers and wings in FA. we got big centers and small guards, basically similar to the roster makeup when we were a big team. now we're screwed because dj's unplayable and dwight's now a 10mpg instead of a 20mpg player. so you're forced small, and having ellington/bradley/baze/monk as your sg options means you're small everywhere and can't defend. i think people are mad about what you posted: the fact that he's arguably the best option as the starter is just a catastrophic failure in roster building. i know he hasn't done anything to deserve it, but i think vogel should have at least tried reaves as a starter by this point, just to see what things could look like with more size at that position with the smallball starting unit. bradley was supposed to be a situational sub when we picked him up.
Well they expected Nunn to be playing instead of Bradley. I can see exactly why we signed Kendrick watching Avery struggle knocking down open shots.
i was thinking about this earlier, and i think, in theory, nunn was supposed to be the guy who can step around a high screen and knock down a three off the dribble. monk's the only one on the roster right now, and he's not as strong a ballhandler. really, the lakers, in my adult life, haven't had guys like this to play off our stars (kobe/shaq/pau before, lebron/AD now), but most teams have one and some have several. it really limits our offense to not have such a guy, and nunn might have been it had he been able to go.
This is another reason why I think Rob deserves just as much of a break as Frank. Nobody expected Lebron, AD and Nunn to miss this much time. If they hadn't, we wouldn't be in this position. Now it's still curious to me, as to why we signed Dwight and Dj, but only planned to play them sparingly. That was a mistake. we should have went after at least one other 3/4,with length, instead of two traditional 5's.
I saw the vision, Nunn and Monk gave us two guys that could hit the 3, but could both attack and score off the dribble. Our luck didn't pan out on the injury front. If Nunn had been as solid as Monk has been, this team would look differently.
Again I like Bradley but what's happening on offense last night was basically AD going against triple teams with Bradley open in the corner and Portland baiting Westbrook to shoot. Think of it this way the shot quality Bradley is getting is incredible just wide open looks so his percentage looks ok but these are shots he needs to bury at a higher rate because the defense is willing to let him have it. Yes Reaves and THT have issues as well but with a guy like Reaves you get more size and he also has more potential then Bradley (he already hit a game winner). Bradley is a rotation player but he's just not a high level starter or a finishing player
I won't give Rob any sort of break for signing 10 6-4 guys. For rejecting any notion of size or defense. Sure Russ was forced on him and no one expected to be without Nunn, but in general he should have created a better balance because the players we planned on being our rotation guys in the pre-season are older and needed safety net depth behind each. Had he handled that, we would've been better equipped to handle injuries.
Flip Bazemore (who GS dumped) for POrter Jr who they got on the minimum and this team would have been so much better. Once they added Johnson you would have a heavy switch solid defensive team with still enough offense and spacing to make things work
